


don’t ask me if it was worth it

by chameleonchanging



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:27:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26801386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chameleonchanging/pseuds/chameleonchanging
Summary: Plo leaves for a mission on his own. When he returns, something isn’t right, and Wolffe has to piece together what.
Relationships: Plo Koon/CC-3636 | Wolffe
Comments: 9
Kudos: 109





	don’t ask me if it was worth it

Plo’s features are sunken in when he boards the Courageous after three weeks away, and he’s wrapped tightly in his robes. There are many places in the galaxy that are cold enough to warrant it, so Wolffe dismisses the thought as he salutes his General. 

“Welcome back, sir,” he says, falling into step beside Plo. “I hope your mission went well.”

“It is finished,” says Plo, ducking his head. “That is all that matters. How have things been here, Commander?” 

“Everything running smoothly,” Wolffe reports. “I can give a more detailed report when you’re ready.” 

“At least something is,” Plo mumbles, running a hand over his face. “I apologize, Commander. Perhaps after I’ve had a chance to settle back in.”

“Of course, sir,” says Wolffe. He watches Plo disappear down the corridor. Later, he’ll wish he’d pressed harder. 

* * *

Plo is a diligent man who attends to each of his responsibilities with care and precision. That much is the same, but the spark that made him so magnetic is gone. He’s withdrawn from social life aboard ship. No one has seen him outside of official business in weeks. He hasn’t been in the mess hall or at the gym, hasn’t accepted any offers to spar, hasn’t even accepted the offer of tea. Food still appears at the troopers’ elbows when they aren’t looking, bacta and bandages wherever they’re needed, but he refuses to allow reciprocity. He’s become a ghost, wandering the ship unseen. 

But for those weeks Wolffe has been on an opposite shift, so he’s completely blindsided when he slips into Plo’s room to sleep and Plo wakes in terror at the slight dip in the mattress. Instead of lashing out or even defending himself, he recoils and curls up into the smallest ball he can - and then remembering where he is, uncurls with a sigh. 

“Forgive me,” he says, untangling himself from the covers. 

“Nightmare?” Wolffe asks, sliding in next to him. 

“Yes,” Plo lies. He settles again, clasping their hands together over his side. “Just the usual.” 

Wolffe tucks himself against Plo’s spine. “Do you want to talk about it?” he asks. Plo’s skin is cold and clammy where he isn’t padded by his sleep clothes. 

“No,” says Plo. “You should sleep.”

In the morning, Wolffe wakes alone, the spot next to him already cool. He wanders out to the outer room that serves as Plo’s office and is not surprised to find him there, half-buried in work. 

“Hey,” he says. Plo looks up. He doesn’t seem rested at all. He blinks twice, rubs his eyes, and lets out a breath. His sleep clothes are wrinkled. 

“Good morning,” Plo says. 

“You don’t look so great,” says Wolffe. “Something going on?”

“No,” says Plo. “Just work. I’m still behind.”

“On what?” He steps towards Plo, who turns the datapad off before he can see what he was working on. 

“Temple matters,” Plo says. He turns to face Wolffe more fully. “Every organization but the rumor mill requires input to keep the wheels greased.”

“Oh,” says Wolffe. “Yeah, I guess so. I just thought someone would have been covering for you while you were away.” He leans against the desk. “How much more do you have? I was hoping to lie in with you this morning.”

“It can wait,” says Plo. He gets up and wraps his arms around Wolffe, the tip of his long claw just brushing his hair. They stumble back to the bedroom, tripping each other as much as helping, and tip onto the bed. Wolffe lands over Plo, catching himself on his arms but crashing into his hip before he can stop himself. Plo draws a sharp breath, almost a whimper. 

“Shit, you okay?” Wolffe says, his hands going to the bony prominence. “Did I hurt you?”

“No, you’re fine,” says Plo. He bumps his head against Wolffe’s as Wolffe eases his weight down next to him.

“You feel nice,” Wolffe mumbles, pulling him in. “We should do this more often.”

“We should,” says Plo. There’s an off note in his tone that Wolffe, in his sleepy haze, doesn’t catch. 

Once they’re back on the same schedule, the little things begin to stand out. Plo is always in his full robes, standing just a little out of reach, fading out of notice like there’s a spell diverting attention from him. He vanishes at the end of every meeting to lock himself in his office, only permitting entry for the delivery of reports. When Wolffe starts paying attention, he starts noticing the number of meals he’s taken alone and how gaunt Plo seems in the moments when no one is looking. 

He wonders if Plo is overworked, and then if Plo is keeping some secret. He even wonders, for a moment, if Plo no longer loves him before discarding that as an impossibility. He has no answers for Plo’s behavior. Plo continues to pull away. 

At night, he pulls Plo against his chest and Plo allows it, unresisting. “You’d tell me if something was wrong, wouldn’t you?” he asks. 

There’s no answer. Plo’s already asleep.

* * *

It’s been weeks since they’ve slept together. Wolffe strokes down Plo’s side and Plo shudders, a full-body twitch that feels more like a jerk. His heart races under Wolffe’s palm. In the dark, his irises gleam, the narrowest rings of silver in the dark. The tiniest stream of clicks escapes him before he catches himself and begins to turn towards Wolffe, but Wolffe is already pulling away. He knows fear when it’s staring him in the face. 

Plo tucks himself against Wolffe’s side, but he’s rigid, like he’s fighting himself to do it. He doesn’t loosen until he’s asleep. The next night, Plo is waiting for him when he gets back to their quarters. When he goes to press their foreheads together he reeks of alcohol, and his fingers are uncoordinated as he fumbles with Wolffe’s collar. The buttons are always tricky for him, but it’s like he’s seeing double and can’t decide which image is real. 

Wolffe catches his hands and pushes him back. “What the hell, Plo?” he asks when Plo nearly falls. “You’re drunk.”

“‘M not,” Plo mumbles. He tries to kiss Wolffe again.

“Little gods,” Wolffe says. He tips Plo onto the couch and is somehow surprised when Plo drags him down too with body weight alone. “What are you doing?”

“You wanted - I haven’t been -“ Plo slurs, giving up on the buttons and going for the belt instead with as much luck. Wolffe bats his hands away.

“I’m not fucking you while you’re blind drunk,” he says flatly. “Drink some water and go to bed.”

“I want you to,” Plo says. “You wanted-“

“You can’t even tell me what year it is,” says Wolffe. He sighs and swears again when Plo tries and misses by a decade. He hands over a bottle of water, watching carefully while Plo drinks. 

“Why does that matter?” Plo asks miserably when he’s done. “You want to. I want you to.”

“Because I don’t sleep with people who have to be impaired to stand the thought of letting me touch them,” says Wolffe. “Go to bed, Plo. I’ll see you in the morning.”

In the morning, Plo is wrapped in layers on layers of his robes again, and he refuses to meet Wolffe’s eyes, shrinking into himself as they pass in the hall. Wolffe turns to watch him after he’s passed. His hands are tucked into his sleeves. As he shuffles along the wall, none of the troopers seem to notice him, and Wolffe finds his attention drifting without meaning to. 

Well, fuck. Wolffe knows a Jedi mind trick when he sees one. He does the only thing he can think of. 

* * *

Mace Windu is a good man. Wolffe knows this for many reasons, including Ponds’ fondness of him, but most personally because Mace had skipped the shovel talk entirely to make sure Wolffe had an out if things with Plo ever went south. He has no qualms about using Mace’s comm code now, pacing nervously in front of the projector while the call connects. 

“Commander Wolffe,” says Mace.

“Master Windu,” Wolffe answers. Mace’s eyes narrow.

“Give me a moment,” he says, and then leans out of view to speak to someone. There’s some movement out of sight, and then Mace returns. “How can I help you?”

“Not me,” says Wolffe. “Plo.” He recaps the last few weeks in broad strokes, skimming over the more uncomfortable details. Mace listens impassively and then closes his eyes. 

“Thank you for letting me know, Commander,” Mace says. “If you could send me your location, someone will go to help. I can’t step away myself at the moment, but this is clearly an urgent matter.”

“Can you tell me what’s going on?” Wolffe asks bluntly, wringing his hands together. His heart aches for Plo, twists at the memory of him blinking up at Wolffe after he’d been tucked in, still trying to coax Wolffe to stay. Remembers laying a hand on Plo’s shoulder and recoiling when Plo lets out a hopeless sob in his sleep, going limp and unresisting as Wolffe shifts around him, as though he’s expecting something terrible. 

“I don’t know. Plo seems to have given the Council a highly edited report of his last mission,” says Mace. “Master Fisto is closest to you, I think. I’ll let him know you’re expecting him.”

* * *

Kit Fisto arrives with much less energy than customary. Wolffe wonders if something has happened to him too before he realizes he’s probably feeling Plo’s miserable agony through the Force. He wouldn’t be surprised if it was palpable from systems away, it seems so all-consuming. Kit bows, going through the formalities of requesting permission to board, and then falls into step beside Wolffe as they wander the halls. Midday the administrative spaces are full of people shuffling files back and forth, nat-borns passing through on their way to meetings, troopers dropping off and picking up messages while trading rumors. They catch a few odd looks, but no one stops them on their way to Plo’s office. 

Wolffe blinks. What was he doing?

“Plo, don’t be rude!” Kit calls through the door. The notice-me-not compulsion drops away and Wolffe scowls, keying in his override. In another moment he’s crossing the room to Plo’s desk.

“Commander,” Plo says dully. “Master Fisto. How can I help you?”

“You look awful,” says Kit. 

“Thank you,” says Plo. “If that’s everything -“

“It’s not,” says Wolffe. He thinks Plo was up all night again. It’s not for any reason he can point to, except that he just seems tired to his bones. Kit reaches out to put a hand on Plo’s shoulder and Plo jerks away, his chair falling over. The three of them stare at each other as it clatters to silence. 

“You lied,” Kit says. 

“I did  _ not- _ “

“You looked me in the eye and lied.” Kit crosses his arms. Wolffe has the sudden feeling he’s watching something that he shouldn’t be. “You said they didn’t do anything -“

“They didn’t!”

“They did  _ something _ , Plo, or you wouldn’t be a nervous wreck!”

“I’m not!”

“Sit down before you fall down,” Wolffe grumbles, setting the chair upright and pushing Plo into it by the shoulder. There’s a brief moment of resistance before Plo sinks, head bent almost against Wolffe’s hip. 

“They were unkind. That was all,” he mumbles. “A few bruises here and there in the service of manipulating my contact. Nothing a little bacta couldn’t fix. I made the choices I could live with.” 

And now he was paying for them. The broad strokes of the situation begin to clarify themselves in Wolffe’s mind. “You didn’t make any choices at all,” he says. “Someone else decided to hurt you.”

“Ah, Plo,” Kit says. “How many times have you told a padawan there’s no shame in seeking help?”

“I didn’t lie because I was ashamed,” says Plo. “I just-“ His throat seems to close around the words. He looks up, and Wolffe understands.

“You wanted to go home,” he says.

Before all this, he would have curled a hand around Plo’s skull without a thought and pulled him in. He wants to. Plo liked it. He thinks Plo still does, even now that his instincts tell him every touch is a precursor to pain. But he’s a social creature by nature; denying himself contact has done him as much harm. 

He offers a hand. Plo’s face twitches, almost imperceptible, before he accepts it, and Wolffe pulls him to standing, bending his head halfway. With only the slightest hesitation, Plo meets him, bumping their foreheads together. 

“Let’s get you some help,” Wolffe says. 

“Okay,” says Plo.


End file.
